A Game Plan to Create Chronic Illness Proof Holiday Traditions

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All around the world, the end of the year rings in the season of festivities. No matter if you celebrate Christmas and New Year’s Eve, the winter solstice or global holidays like St.Nichols Day, the Buddhist Bodhi Day or the African-American Kwanzaa, we all love to come together during the darkest days of the year to share a meal, presents and quality time.

But when you have a chronic illness like fibromyalgia, ulcerative colitis or COPD, you can’t always make merry and enjoy the holiday cheer the way you used to. Maybe loud parties, big family gatherings or flickering lights now trigger a migraine attack or sensory overload. Maybe your inflamed joints stop you from decorating the Christmas tree with the kids or go shopping for presents with your best friend. Or perhaps you no longer have the energy to bake your famous Thanksgiving pie or go out until midnight to see the fireworks.

And that’s sad, because holiday traditions provide a sense of stability, strengthen bonds and make you feel like you belong. Isn’t that what we’re all looking for during the holiday season?

Thankfully, with a little creativity and support from your loved ones, you can adapt existing holiday traditions to better fit your needs and abilities – or you can create new ones all together.

1. How do you want it all to feel?

The first step to creating new chronic illness-proof holiday traditions is asking yourself what exactly it is that you’re longing for. Or as Danielle LaPorte puts it, how do you want this holiday season to feel?

You might think that’s obvious, but sipping hot cacao while reading by the fireplace gives off a different vibe than a big family dinner or wearing your sparkliest outfit to a New Year’s Eve party. So get clear what matters to you most. Do you want to be cozy and connected? Would you love to experience joy, fun and excitement? Or are you looking for that warm and fuzzy feeling, that makes Hanukkah and Christmastime different than the rest of year?

Of course you can have more than one core desired feeling. It’s perfectly normal to want an introspective solstice celebration but also start the new year with a splash (even literally, with a New Year’s Day Plunge). But having an overall idea of the atmosphere, sensations and experiences you’re aiming for can be a helpful tool to make (tough) choices on how you will spend your limited energy during the holiday season.

Speaking of which…

2. Set priorities  

With so many festivities, fun activities and social gathering in a relatively short amount of time, nobody can do it all, even if you would have been healthy. So for each holiday, choose one activity that will make it feel special. 

Maybe you’d love to be well enough to have a Thanksgiving dinner with your family or closest friends, even if that means you have to skip your town’s parade earlier that day. Or maybe you enjoy visiting a Christmas market or have a blast shopping for all your presents locally, but you let your partner or housemates do the decorating of the tree and holiday baking (even though you like doing that too).

Either way, you have to set priorities, to pace your energy and manage your symptoms throughout the holiday season. If you’re able to sneak in more low-key seasonal pleasures like making a Hanukkah snack board, lighting candles on Bodhi day or doing some crafting – great! But try to see that as a bonus, not a requirement to have a happy holiday season.

3. Map out limitations and obstacles 

What’s stopping you from doing your usual holiday traditions? By taking a closer look at the specific obstacles and limitations, you can then come up with solutions – or create something new all entirely.

• Too little energy, too much pain? Grab your calendar and plan plenty of rest before and after fun events and activities. Also up your self-care game during the holiday season by prioritizing sleep, nutrient-rich meals and mental relaxation. That includes prepping your ‘toolkit’ to manage your symptoms, from breath work and restorative yoga to herbal remedies and heating pads to soothe pain.
• Sensory overload in crowded spaces? You could shop for presents and order groceries online, from the quietude of your own home. If you do have to spend time in noisy environments, bring a noise-cancelling headphone or wear Loop Engage earplugs if you still want to socialize.
• Food allergies or on a medically-required diet? Search Pinterest for holiday recipes suitable for your dietary needs. Make a plan and/or meal prep ahead of time, so you can bring your own safe dishes to gatherings if needed.
• Limited mobility? Can’t drive, walk or stand long enough to go to busy stores and play the host during the holidays? Delegate some of your tasks, ask for help from your family and friends,
• No family and friends nearby? Explore if it’s possible health wise for you to travel to them, invite your loved ones over to your house for the holidays or experiment with a fun virtual gathering, like a Zoom cook-along, a virtual carol karaoke or online trivia games.
• Bad timing, symptom-wise? If your symptoms get worse later in the day, see if you can move your celebrations to a different time of day. Perhaps you can have a Thanksgiving lunch instead of dinner, have a holiday happy hour instead of a Christmas party or do an early countdown on New Year’s Eve.

You might have more than one obstacle to overcome, which makes things more challenging of course. But by getting a clear picture of the difficulties you’re experiencing, it’s easier to think of creative ways to work around (some of your) problems.

4. Make existing holiday traditions easier 

Let’s get creative: What can you do to make your existing holiday traditions that mean a lot to you more accessible or more illness-friendly?

• Could you ask for help from family and friends, delegate (part of) a task or enlist paid services? For example, if you love seeing all the Christmas lights and decorated homes but you aren’t well enough to walk or drive around the neighborhood, do you have a friend or family member that would love to take you for a tour?
• Are there any tools or aids available that would make your job lighter? Would a KitchenAid help you to still bake the Christmas cookies your family loves, without having to kneed the dough by hand? Or maybe you could use reusable fabric gift bags with a drawstring instead of wrapping each present in paper if you have arthritic fingers – and it’s more sustainable too.
• Is there an easier alternative you could try? As great as it looks, putting up a Christmas tree can be a lot of work – and even painful if you have health problems. So if there’s no-one around to help you, you could also consider hanging a Christmas wreath or festive stockings for decoration. It’s not the same, I know, but maybe it helps to preserve some energy for other meaningful holiday traditions.

And remember, you do not have to go all out to have an amazing time. We see so many perfectly styled homes, outfits and experiences, that you might forget that you can still enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas without all the holiday decorations or matching pajamas. Sure, if you love this kind of creativity and got enough energy, go for it! But your dinner will taste just as lovely when the table is not perfectly set and your friends will be just as happy to see you when you’re not wearing a new dress.

5. Create new, chronic illness proof holiday traditions

As lovely as longstanding cultural and family traditions are, we sometimes have to be realistic when our circumstances change. Whether you’re dealing with young kids who can’t sit still for long, elderly relatives who can no longer take on the role they used to have or you’re struggling with chronic illness yourself, it shouldn’t feel like a challenge to get through a holiday dinner.

If you’re used to celebrating the holidays with family and friends, you do need to communicate with them, explain your limitations kindly but clearly and discuss alternative ideas if you want to keep coming together, just in a way that’s more doable for you.

For example, do you feel too exhausted to cook or join the usual big family dinner?  You could use energy-saving cooking tools like slow cookers, kitchen aids and oven trays. You could have a feast but let the oven do most of the cooking for you with this sheet pan roasted turkey and cranberry pecan stuffing and spiced baked apples, pears and mandarins for dessert.

Alternatively, suggest a potluck to divide the workload and let everyone bring (part of) a dish. Or if your loved ones live close by, see if you can go around for drinks and appetizers only, or join everyone after dinner for dessert and coffee to better manage your fatigue and sensory overload. Finally, if the time of day makes it harder for you to gather around the table, see if you have a festive lunch this year instead of dinner.

Another way to create new chronic illness proof holiday traditions is by making the things you’re already doing more meaningful or special. When shopping for groceries, take a little detour to drive around to look at all the decorations. Put on a seasonal audiobook like The Pumpkin Spice Café or The Christmas Bookshop while you’re prepping dinner, instead of rushing to get it done.

When you’re having your morning cup of coffee, you could write in a 5-minute gratitude journal or list your theme word, intentions or dreams for the new year. Sit down to do your online shopping with some Dutch kruidnoten or healthy peppermint cookies, and have some holiday music playing in the background. These little tweaks can change the mood from “tackling your to-do list” to a more joyful experience.

You could also build your new traditions around the limitations you listed. Are you mostly stuck at home, missing out on parades, parties and fireworks? Have a holiday movie marathon, with all the seasonal snacks. Whether you love the classic Christmas movies like The Holiday and The Polar Express, or you prefer Die Hard and the Harry Potter movies, this will keep you entertained for a while. You could curl up in bed or bring mattresses into the living room to chill by the Christmas tree and shake things up.

If you’re well enough, you can also start a new yearly ritual of crafting holiday cards with your kids, building a LEGO Christmas Village or playing board games on New Year’s Eve with a friend.

For more inspiration for chronic illness proof rituals, check out these 34 Ways to Have a Happy Holiday Season at Home.

6. Give your rest days a seasonal makeover

Chances are you have to pace your energy carefully throughout the holiday season, so you’ll spend more time lying in bed or resting on the couch than you’d like. But you could still add some holiday cheerfulness to your rest days if you want!

Treat yourself to some festive pajamas, fluffy socks or cozy blanket. Hang some fairy lights in your bedroom to make the day-after-events symptoms a little easier to bear. You could even up your winter wellness game by bathing in homemade winter spiced bath salts or a sipping some immune-supporting winter tea.

If you can, watch Christmas movies during your preemptive rest sessions to get in the holiday spirit or listen to wintery audiobooks as you’re recovering. Feeling good enough to sit up? Enjoy some seasonal jigsaw puzzles, do some simple crafting or journal about the highlights of the past year, even if – or especially if – it’s been tough.

By giving your rest days a seasonal makeover, they might feel a little less like “lost time” and more like soothing self care.

7. Sneak the holiday spirit into your routines

Ok, so you might not be able to have all the fun you’d like or attend (all the) social events this season has to offer. That makes it even more important to sneak some small seasonal pleasures into your daily life to make this time of year feel special!

• Practice gratitude in any way that feels genuine to you. Say grace before dinner, jot down 3 positive things that happened each day during the holiday season or write a thank you card to someone who’s supported you this year.
• Enjoy as much seasonal flavors as you can, from pumpkin chia pudding, and healthy gingerbread cookies to sweet potato turkey chili, a loaded Brussels sprouts salad and cranberry pecan pilaf. Pick recipes that are easy to make and/or batch cook for days when you’ll be too tired to cook.
• Watch the sunrise or sunset, head into nature if you can or light a bonfire to make the winter solstice memorable.
• Make a playlist that’ll put you in the right mood (see point #1)! Get dreamy and poetic with Taylor Swift’s Evermore, croon along with Michael Bublé’s Christmas hits, rock around the Christmas tree or put on your favorite upbeat tracks for a living room dance party – whatever you like!
• Light an advent candle at breakfast for a slow and intentional start of the day.
• Wear an ugly holiday sweater or do the opposite and go all out with glitter nails, sequin clothes and shiny accessoires!
• Cozy up with a special warm drink like orange spice hot cocoa or mix up a festive mocktail to get into the holiday spirit.

Sprinkling some seasonal pleasures throughout your week can still add some joy to the holiday season, even if chronic illness stops you from participating in more taxing festivities.

You may feel sad that you can’t host your usual Hanukkah gathering or go out with your friends for New Year’s Eve this year, and that’s totally normal. But at the same time, don’t overlook all the small ways you can still experience joy, connection and coziness this holiday season.

With some planning, creativity and support, you can adapt existing rituals to meet your current needs or you can create new chronic illness proof holiday traditions to work around your limitations. Either way, hopefully this game plan has given you the inspiration you need to make this time of year fun and meaningful to you.

You can find even more accessible ideas in 34 Ways to Have Happy Holidays at Home, check out these 19 Healthy Side Dishes That Steal The Show for your holiday gatherings and learn how to deal with FOMO in What to Do When You’re Missing Out Because of Chronic Illness.